April Fool!

April first, and there’s SNOW on the ground!  Not much, to be honest, but Saturday it rained all day, then it sleeted, then the snow started.  Within an hour, everything was completely covered.  An early April Fool's joke on us!

In the morning, my poor daffodils and daylilies poked through here and there, and the trees glistened with a thin layer of ice and glowed with a finish coat of snow on their trunks and branches.  The neighbor’s chain link fence, encased in ice, shone in the sunlight.

Usually, by the end of the day all the snow and ice would have melted, but this time, the temperature never got above 35 degrees, so most of it remained.  No big deal, but often, when there is ice on the trees, branches will break.

And some will hit power lines.

Heavy sigh.

So, on top of the unexpected ice and snow, last evening we lost power.  Talk about piling one insult on another - FUN!

At least we’re well practiced.  We used to have frequent outages before our part of the power grid was improved.  I got out the oil lamp and a zillion candles and lit ‘em up.  So we had light and a little heat.  It always gets me how the house will stay relatively warm (around 66 degrees) with just the oil lamps and candles.  And how quiet it is without the TV, refrigerator, and furnace blower running.

The cats appropriated our laps and contributed warmth to the throws we bundled up with.  Nothing to do but wait.

We reported the outage by mobile phone, talked on the phone, talked to each other.

Not a bad way to spend a few hours!

RAIN (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

The past few prompts haven't inspired me at all.  It's not a problem with the prompts; it's a problem with ME!  After spending July writing like a mad thing for Camp NaNoWriMo, I guess I was a little burned out, but here I am, at last!

GO!

Rain resonates with me this week.  Suddenly, after an absolutely gorgeous day on Wednesday, at six o'clock, it poured!  Suddenly, after an absolutely gorgeous day yesterday, at four-thirty, it POURED!  Today started with a misting of rain, then worked its way up to a light rain, and since about two o'clock it has rained steadily, and our front yard has filled up.  Lake Williams lives!

I'm kind of sick of the rain today, but I know we need it.  Crops need rain.  Our reservoirs and rivers and groundwater need rain.  We NEED rain even though it's inconvenient, annoying, and floods our front yard.

"Into every life, a little rain must fall."

Not always literal rain.  We're going through some not so fun times right now.  Oh, nothing catastrophic, but just difficult. 

The air conditioning in my car got wimpy last week, so I took it to the shop.  An unexpected expense - not fun. 

The back window of That Man's pickup truck cap disappeared on the interstate.  He doesn't know exactly where it happened, but he stopped at a rest area to check the trailer hitch and the window and frame were gone.  Poof!  He's driving around with a piece of classy black plastic and duct tape fending off the elements - namely the RAIN we've been experiencing the past week and a half.  Again, not fun.

Oh, and another festive touch to the truck - the brake lines are rusty, so they're being replaced.  We don't need the brake lines to rupture while he's pulling the race car trailer through the mountains (or anywhere, for that matter).

And suddenly, my right knee has decided it doesn't want to do its job (holding me up) and has been complaining - LOUDLY.  Everything I do, it hurts and makes dire threats to quit on me.  So I went to the doctor, got x-rays, and I've been referred to an orthopedic surgeon.  Tricompartmental osteoarthritis - a mouthful that means I have a bad knee.  ACK!  Say it ain't so!

However...

In the past couple of weeks, we've also had some beautiful sunny days, That Man raced his car and did well, I went winery hopping with a group of friends, I ate fabulous food at the Indianapolis Greek Fest and the Tipton County Pork Festival, and I've been planning a trip to the Outer Banks with my sister.  So there have been good times alongside the rain.

Just as we need rain, we need some difficult times to make us appreciate the good times.  And I'm REALLY appreciating the good times!

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "RAIN."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

Rain, Backyard Chickens, and Sustainability

Rain, rain, and more rain.

It's all my fault.

I went out to work in The Garden Saturday morning, and a rogue thought came to me - "Oh, I don't want to water the garden.  Maybe it will rain and I won't have to."

And it did later that day.  And every day since.

Ugh.

The front yard is flooded, and still it rains.

I got out this morning and ran.  At least it didn't start raining until after the house was nearly in view at the end of my run.  It rained last time I ran, too. I'm tired of trying to run around thunderstorms.

I'm just tired of rain.

But a low pressure system has been sitting over the midwest for a week.  The forecast is gloomy.  No end in sight for now.

So I lost myself on the Internet looking up information on Backyard Chickens.

Yes, Backyard Chickens.  And Urban Chickens.  And Pet Chickens.  And Chicken Coops.  A garden and backyard chickens would go together so well!

Then I found that we can't have chickens inside the city limits.  Curses, foiled!!!

Believe it or not, there is sort of a chicken...movement.  A groundswell.  People in Indianapolis are putting up chicken coops in their backyards, at schools and workplaces!  There's even a Tour de Coop bicycle ride/tour of several urban chicken coops in the fall.  Crazy!  But oddly compelling.

My great uncle Earnest (yes, spelled with an "a") lived in Orange County, California - NOT in the country, and he and my great aunt Edith had chickens and a garden, and fruit trees.  I clearly remember the chickens, and  "picking eggs" for Aunt Edith.

Maybe I just want to relive my childhood.

Or maybe I want to pretend I live on a farm..

Or maybe I'll give it a politcally correct label - an Experiment in Sustainability.

Yeah, that's it - Sustainability.

Maybe next I'll look up goats.